New term already in view

The best part of the holidays in many ways - more relaxed but beginning to think about what is in store. Each year, I swear that I am going to focus on working more effectively rather than harder - revamping rather than starting from scratch. Easier said than done but teacher forums are a great place to get ideas and share resources.

The two webtools for English teachers today are:

Flocabulary: Educational Hip Hop: http://www.flocabulary.com/macbeth.html

A rap video telling the story of Macbeth. While I am not into rap, the students could like it.

Shakespearean Insults: http://www.petelevin.com/shakespeare.htm

Afun way to introduce Shakespeare.

Visual Literacy Teaching Unit: http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/vislit.htm
Visual Literacy Unit for Years 7 & 8.

While I teach plays other than 'Macbeth', there are also many excellent app downloads available that summarise the plot and highlight aspects of characterisation, language and so on. I found the last time that I taught it, that the students themselves found ones that I had missed and since they are so cheap, didn't mind downloading their own to help them understand the play.

Image manipulation apps are also out there in abundance so visual literacy can be exciting for students because they can compose really professional looking picture books and so on.

At the moment I am still working on 'Satire' which seems to be taking years to get finished. It is such a broad field but classic satire is so different to contemporary styles because the heavy moral message is less evident. Condemnation aplenty but little real suggestion of how social flaws and vices can be remedied or reformed. Visual satire and satiric poetry remain readily accessible. Texts like 'The Loved Ones' however would not work easily with many students now as the context and language would take a lot of time. Shepard Fairey has some wonderful posters that students enjoy discussing.

Am also working on upcoming TTA workshops for Term II which include, Advanced Module B Speeches, 'Witness', Wilfred Owen, 'Hamlet' and Extension 1 Science Fiction.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Using Web tools in the classroom

Teachers offer lots of advice about the many web tools that are available for classroom use. The enormous range, especially with graphics, are particularly useful for English teachers. Most of us are familiar with wordles and the many aps that can be used to really get the students interested in visual literacy. It also tends to raise the standard of the finished product.
I have become fascinated with what can be done with typography which brings the visual manipulation of text to dizzying heights. It can be especially effective with poetry as the following clip shows.

I will endeavour to post some excellent Websites for English teachers each blog. Most of us do 'Macbeth' at some stage as well as visual literacy with Stage 4. The following sites have some good ideas.

* Virtual Macbeth: http://virtualmacbeth.wikispaces.com/
Foul whisperings, strange matters - a Second Life treatment of Macbeth.
*Film Site: http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms1.html
Cinematic terms: a film-maker's glossary. In order to be knowledgeable about
film-making, the vocabulary of film studies and the techniques of cinema, some
of the most basic and common terms must be defined. Illustrations are provided
with many of the terms, to help describe them more fully.
* Visual Literacy in the Classroom: http://www.zardec.net.au/keith/visual.htm Students today live in a multimedia world. Everyone can benefit by developing their abilities to create, use and evaluate visual resources.
*Shakescenes: http://www.princeton.edu/~danson/Lit131/Scenes.htm Video clips of scenes from Shakespearean plays.
*Wired 14.11: Very Short Stories: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html A collection of stories using only six words.

Will get back to learning how to better use web tools. Even Coles shopping bumpf has barcodes now that enable you to watch online cooking classes via your phone. Where will we be in ten years?

School Based Workshops and Online Resources

It has been a while since I have posted anything and thought it was about time that I updated what I am up to.

At the TTA workshops that I have been giving for the past few years, schools have often asked for site based workshops that would cater specifically to the HSC texts that they are studying. This has proved really successful with not only 'Belonging' workshops for students but half day sessions with teachers and students for Extension English courses or Advanced Modules. Regional areas have been particularly keen to take up this option, as it is difficult to get to the University and other workshops that are more readily available to city students.

Professional Development workshops can be costly in time and money for schools. Until more online courses become available, school based workshops can be a more cost effective alternative. Since they can also cater to students or teachers, depending on the numbers involved, costs can be minimised as travel and casual hire costs can also be saved. Workshop booklets and workshop resources are designed to for students in preparation for the HSC exams.

To make this option easier for teachers to access, I have set up an online site for teachers to express interest in organising school based workshops that suit their particular needs. I have also started making some junior and senior resources available for purchase. This site is still being constructed but it will be interesting to see if it will help address what teachers are looking for with the implementation of the National Curriculum. I have included hotlinks to TTA to see the range of courses available and to Phoenix Education for those who seem to be having trouble getting copies of books such as 'Exploring Genre - Murder Most Foul'.

If you are interested, take a look at:

www.stannersenglishresources.weebly.com

I would welcome any feedback or suggestions. It is still very much in an infancy stage so don't expect too many bells and whistles.

If there is sufficient interest, I might even resurrect the English Ning I set up a couple of years ago as a place for teachers to share resources and ideas.

Hope you are all enjoying the Easter holidays and not too exhausted with Year 12 or junior marking.

Barbara

Term 4 is upon us

A final scramble to get units up and running and finish off the pre HSC editing of drafts still filtering through from students. Increasingly the effectiveness of a unit relates to the quality of preparation as once the term is underway, the pace becomes almost frenetic at times. Setting up wikispaces and weebly sites can help build up a handy repository of resources to draw on and limit handouts and assessment notification that can become a nightmare. As always the holidays have flown with many good intentions not achieved. My mistake is in envisaging that I can get so much more done in the time.

Term 4 workshops will kick in by Week 3 and next year, there should be some online versions of the topics offered this year through TTA. It will be interesting as well to get further updates regarding changing curriculum content, approach and assessment for years 7-12. The adage that change is good for us has some merit but I sometimes wonder whether there will ever be a ceiling on the expectations placed on time poor teachers. I look back and remember times that seemed less hectic and more productive.

Technology has been a mixed blessing but I will continue to explore how it can be used effectively within the classroom. There are many forums and blogspots available for sharing great ideas and software to try out and to improve current strategies. Powerpoints have been the staple of many teachers for a long time but it needs to be remembered that unless they make a real impact on the viewer, they are a poor substitute for a simple handout which will contain far more indepth information than just words on slides.

Well back to resource prep for my upcoming units.

Holidays!
Teachers sigh with relief for a few days before the preparation for Term 4 begins, new units and resources to develop especially for the first term of HSC. It has been decreed that we all have to teach the same texts for this coming cohort. I have many reservations about this but just have to concur that 'Witness' will be our Module B text. I have not taught this before even though I have written about it a number of times and as such do not a great resource pool to draw on apart from analytical deconstruction I have come up with. Ideas and suggestions for getting students engaged for this text would be appreciated. On a personal level, I find it very dated and cannot see that it is 'distinctive' in a great many ways as an exemplar film text. I am hoping that I warm to it once I get underway. There are so many brilliant films out there to choose from, I always wonder why this one has lasted on the textlist for so many, many years.
I am also busy with Exploring 'Satire', a text that is long overdue with my publishers. It was meant to be published about now but this year seems to have flown with time and energy spent elsewhere. I am finalising he content list and am tentatively looking at a range from Aristophanes up to 'V for Vendetta' as a contemporary political dystopian text. Many of the famous texts would not necessarily work well in the average classroom and so I am trying to focus more on those that students might find more interesting. I do not intend however to focus much on 'The Simpsons' or similar but more on various playwrights and poets. Suggestions of texts that you think work well in the classroom would be helpful.
Fine weather beckons me away from the computer.
Barbara

Term 3 Snapshot

Where has the time gone - last entry in late April?

We seem busier now than at any other time I can remember in over three decades of being in the classroom.

Another Year 12 cohort is about to leave and while shortcomings will always exist; many of them are (at last) making sound preparation for their upcoming exams. Prelim classes are about to begin and so the cycle continues. Technology has however, drastically altered the methodology I use. There is an amazing range of communicative tools now available, a timely reminder our students are from a social media rather than a pen and paper generation.

I will leave you with some words of wisdom from the Bard.

"If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work;

But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come." (King Henry IV, Part 1, Act 1, Scene ii)

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" M. Taylor

Beginning work on a short, five week close study of this text for my Preliminary HSC class. The focus is on examining the link between context and text and on 'how' key issues and themes are communicated. While this text is more commonly taught in Primary or junior secondary, I think it is engaging for senior students as well. From first impressions, it is clear that there is little general knowledge about the era and the social consequences that flowed from it. There is such a wealth of photographic material that students will also be asked to develop their visual literacy and empathy skills.

I will post various resources I develop for those who might be interested in studying it as a senior text for developing interpretive and research skills with Prelim Standard Course students. The aim is that the text will serve as the vehicle for refining response skills. I think many of the texts that had been used in junior school could be re-evaluated in this way. 'Slake's Limbo' and 'The Running Man' are excellent novels to use for evaluating narrative techniques such as 'voice', structure and symbolism.

Stay tuned!